No matter when, history is a mystery

Published 10:33 am, Thursday, April 5, 2012

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No matter when, history is a mystery

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Have you ever wondered how different your life would be if you lived in a different time?

I often wonder that, especially when I’m reading or watching anything having to do with history. I always have enjoyed history — definitely one of my favorite subjects through school, so it’s not hard to sit and imagine living during an historic time period, like WWI or WWII.

Watching any history show on the History Channel is normal for me, depending on the time period.

While I usually don’t go near the Military Channel, that changed after scrolling through my TV guide and coming across a show about missions that changed the world and the voyage, so to speak, of the B-29 Enola Gay.

For those who aren’t up to speed on their history, the Enola Gay was the B-29 plane that dropped the first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Another atomic bomb was dropped three days later on Nagasaki.

It was an in-depth, two-part show that explored the background of the pilot, the training of the crew and the advancements in fighter planes during the war.

The Military Channel explores and researches — you guessed it — the military aspect of “police actions,” or wars.

Clearly a lot of work went into these episodes, with a lot of research tied into it. They had archival interviews with the famous pilot of the Enola Gay, Lt. Col. Paul Tibbets, as well as navigator Capt. Theodore “Dutch” Van Kirk, who is still alive.

The amount of research that was done on the Enola Gay and the bomb was astounding. The commanders in charge of the mission wanted someone with experience. Tibbets fit that bill, and he was able to pick his team — the 509th Squadron.

Tibbets was the only one who knew what was going on and, if any of his men dared to talk or speculate about the mission, they were sent to the Aleutians where they could talk or speculate to the seals all they wanted.

This part of history hits home for me and brings on more questions that unfortunately can’t be answered at the present.

My Great Uncle Paul, who passed away in 1998, was stationed on Tinian, a tiny island south of Japan, when the Enola Gay was based there before and shortly after the mission.

Watching the show made me wonder if my uncle had the honor or opportunity to meet this flight crew. That was a possibility because he served as an MP, or military police, and the base was under tight security at the time.

To have an opportunity to be a part of something that big and historic is mind-boggling.

Watching this episode made me wish that I was older before my great uncle died so I could have been able to hear his recollections of his time on the base and the island.

Think about it. The military commanders thought if the atomic bomb wasn’t dropped when it was, then the war with Japan would have continued for who knows how long. The date of the drop was chosen because President Truman wanted to wait until after the conference with the allied countries at Potsdam, Germany, was over, plus weather played a big factor.

Rather than relying on radar to prevent the Japanese from finding out, the bombardier chose a spot that could easily be seen from 31,000 feet in the air, well out-of-range of enemy anti-aircraft guns.

All this information was astounding, as was the amount of training the team had to have. They trained several months at a top secret base in Utah while awaiting the completion and trial of the atomic bomb in Alamogordo, N.M.

It’s not hard to wonder about the amount of stress that the 509th was under to perfect this mission. Botching it was not an option; there were some dire consequences.

How nerve-wrecking would it be to travel six hours in a plane, the distance between Tinian and Japan, with a loaded, ready-to-go atomic bomb?

They were able to harness and create an atomic bomb in the 1940s, but here we are in 2012 and still haven’t figureed out how to create a time machine so we can experience these historical events firsthand! In all honesty, nothing beats hearing these events from a family member.

Maybe years down the road, our descendants will wonder what it was like to live in our historic time period? We have had plenty of historic events ourselves: 9/11, the war, the capture and trial of Saddam Hussein and the killing of Osama bin Laden.